“I have so much to tell you, but I don’t know where to begin.” He sighed and closed his eyes, not knowing what to do. “The events of today have been so fast-paced, I’m having a hard time keeping up with them all.
“If you had told me I was going to find you while I was on my way to being rescued, I would have assumed they were too far gone and their minds had left them after all the years of being imprisoned.”
“Then let’s start at the beginning,” Ashley said softly, carefully grabbing his arm and lightly squeezing it. He blinked his eyes open and turned to see her worried expression. “I don’t need all the answers tonight. The essentials are fine.”
“The beginning?” he inquired, unsure where she wanted him to begin. “How did you start?”
“I’ve grasped the basics of who you are and how you got here,” she replied, staring down at where her hand held his arm as she rubbed it along his skin, as if she was taking in the texture of his scales. “But could you please explain to me what thisenaxbusiness is all about and what its implications are for me?”
Xizi looked at Ashley, his hearts beating fast with excitement and anticipation. He knew that he needed to tell her the truth, that he needed to explain why he felt such a strong connection to her.
He knew it would be foolish to expect her to feel the same way about him. Humans believed in soul mates, but Xizi could never accept that it was the same as his species’enax.
Human bodies did not adapt to their soul mates—they were not biologically aligned with each other, as he was now with Ashley.
“Asssshley,” he said, his voice thick and filled with the raw emotion that coursed through him. “I need to tell you something. Ssssomething that might be hard to believe, but it’s the truth.”
Ashley looked at him, her eyes searching his face for some kind of clue or hint. “What is it?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle.
Xizi took a deep breath, gathering his courage. “As you know, you’re myenax,” he said, his voice filled with conviction. “You’re my fated mate, the one that the Stars have led me to. As soon as I escaped from Area 51, I felt a pull that led me to your home. And when I saw you, I knew that you were mine.”
Ashley looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise and wonder. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice filled with curiosity. “What led you to me?”
““I mean that we were meant to be together,” he said, his voice filled with conviction. “That the Stars have brought us together for a reason, to share our lives and our love. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that we’re in this together, and that nothing can ever tear us apart.”
“That is what an enax is for my species.” Xizi nodded, feeling a sense of nervousness and excitement. “It’s a word from my planet, a word that means fated mate. It’s the highest honor that one can have, to find their enax and be bonded for life.”
“Bonded for life?” she repeated, her voice soft and hesitant.
Xizi took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “In our culture, we believe that each of us has a fated mate, someone who is destined to be with us. And when I saw you, I felt a connection to you, a bond that I knew was unbreakable. I knew that you were the one I had been searching for, the one I had been waiting for my whole life.”
Ashley looked at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face for some kind of explanation or sign. And then she smiled, a soft and gentle expression that filled him with hope and joy.
“I believe you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I believe that we were meant to be together, that we were destined to find each other. And I’m willing to see where this journey takes us—together.”
Xizi looked at Ashley with a sense of seriousness and intensity, feeling the weight of his words as he spoke. “Ashley, now that we have been together, our bodies are aligned. There will be no other for me, no other mate or partner. You are myenax, my fated mate, and I am yours.”
Ashley looked at him with a sense of confusion and uncertainty, clearly unsure of what he meant. “What do you mean, aligned?” she asked, her voice filled with curiosity.
Xizi took a deep breath, trying to find the words to explain. “In our culture, when two fated mates come together, their bodies align in a way that makes them unable to mate with anyone else. It’s a bond that can never be broken, a connection that lasts a lifetime.”
Ashley stared at him for a long time, her gaze searching his face for some kind of explanation or sign. “So you’re saying your body will never align with another? That what I thought was a one-night stand with a hired cosplayer was actually me marrying a real alien?”
“That is correct. You are it for me.” He dared to lean forward and cup her cheek. “Unless I find another Rkekh outside my clutchmates, I wouldn’t be able to reproduce outside our coupling.”
“What if I don’t want kids? What happens then?” she murmured, unable to meet his gaze.
“Then we will not have any clutchessss.”
“It’s that easy?” she said, snapping her fingers.
”What good will it be for me to force ssssomething like that on you?” Xizi hissed. “We don’t even know what life will be like on this sssecret base the Verya and the Ezzaska have. It would be wrong for me even to think that.” He sighed. “I didn’t have any hope before today to ever be fffree…”
“And now you are.”
He brushed her hair back gently off her face. “And now, I am.”
“What about the visions? The dreams I had?”
